Uncle Max eBook

’Don’t let the hope go out of your voice,
Gladys: it will all come right by and by.
Only be strong and patient, my darling.’

‘I am strong when I am near you, but not when
I am alone,’ she answered, with a slight shiver;
and then we heard Lady Betty’s voice calling
her, and she left me reluctantly.

I thought she would come back, so I did not hurry
myself; but presently I got tired of waiting, and
walked to the head of the staircase.

As I looked down on the lighted hall I saw Mr. Hamilton
standing with folded arms, as though he had been waiting
there some time; at the sound of my footstep he looked
up quickly and eagerly, and our eyes met, and then
I knew,—­I knew!

‘Come, Ursula,’ he said, with a sort of
impatience, holding out his hand; and somehow, without
delay or hesitation, just as though his strong will
was drawing me, I went down slowly and put my hand
in his, and it seemed as though there was nothing
more to be said.

I saw his face light up; he was about to speak, when
Miss Darrell swept up to us noiselessly with a hard
metallic smile on her face.

’Do you know, Miss Garston, Lady Betty tells
me that the nightingales are singing so charmingly;
she and I are just going down the road to listen to
them, if you can put up with our company for part of
the way.’

Giles—­I called him Giles in my heart that
night, for something told me we belonged to each other—­said
nothing, but his face clouded, and we went out together.

No one heard the nightingales, but only Lady Betty
commented on that fact. Miss Darrell was talking
too volubly to hear her. She clung to my side
pertinaciously, almost affectionately; she wanted to
hear all about the wedding; she plied me with questions
about Sara, and Jill, and Mr. Tudor. All the
way up the hill she talked until we passed the church
and the vicarage, until we were at the gate of the
White Cottage, and then she stopped with an affected
laugh.

’Dear me, I have actually walked the whole way;
how tired I am!—­and no wonder, for there
is eleven chiming from the church tower. For shame,
to keep us all up so late, Miss Garston!’

‘I will not detain you,’ I returned, with
secret exasperation.

Mr. Hamilton had not spoken once the whole way, only
walked silently beside me; but as he set open the
gate and wished me good-night, his clasp of my hand
gave me the assurance that I needed.

‘Never mind: he will come to-morrow and
tell me all about it,’ I said to myself as I
walked up the narrow garden-path between the rows of
sleeping flowers. If I lingered in the porch
to watch a certain tall figure disappear into the
darkness, no one knew it, for the stars tell no tales.

CHAPTER XXXVI

BREAKERS AHEAD

It was well that the stars, those bright-eyed spectators
of a sleeping world, tell no tales of us poor humans,
or they might have whispered the fact that the reasonable
sober-minded Ursula Garston was holding foolish vigil
that night until the gray dawn drove her away to seek
a brief rest.